


Burial Sentences

by RembrandtsWife



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Angst, Background Character Death, M/M, POV Outsider, Religious Imagery & Symbolism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-10
Updated: 2013-05-10
Packaged: 2017-12-11 02:26:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/792986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RembrandtsWife/pseuds/RembrandtsWife
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jim is dead, and Blair's grief is witnessed by one of the singers at Jim's funeral.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Burial Sentences

**Author's Note:**

> A story for All Souls' Day, and for all our beloved dead. And because I have wanted to write something that would honor this magnificent music. I have sung all the pieces referred to in this story.

## Burial Sentences

by Merri-Todd Webster

Author's webpage: <http://lonchura.tripod.com/slash.html>

Author's disclaimer: Not mine but Pet Fly's, but you know that.

* * *

Burial Sentences  
by Merri-Todd Webster  
(4 November 1999) 

I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord;  
he that believeth in me, though he were dead,  
yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth  
and believeth in me shall never die. 

* * *

The soprano put down her copy of the Burial Sentences and bowed her head during the collect. The long sleeves of her surplice fell in crisp white ripples over the black sleeves of her cassock and over the prayer beads twined in her fingers. In over ten years of singing in the choir, this was the hardest funeral she had ever had to sing. 

* * *

We brought nothing into this world,  
and it is certain we can carry nothing out.  
The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away;  
blessed be the name of the Lord. 

* * *

The man with the curly hair was crying. He could not stop crying, and she could not look at him. She could hear his sobs, and that was bad enough, but if she looked at him, she would not be able to sing, to keep a straight tone and sing properly. He deserved the best that she could do--she must not screw this up--for him and for the man whom he had loved, the man for whom this funeral was held. 

The name of the deceased was James Joseph Ellison, and he had been a police detective. For not quite three years, he had been a member of the parish, accompanied by his partner, Blair Sandburg. Blair was Jewish, yet he came to the Episcopal church from time to time with his partner, often enough that everyone knew him, liked him. He had requested that Jim be buried in the form of his own religion, in the stately language of Rite I that went back to Cranmer and Queen Elizabeth, the way Jim would have preferred. 

* * *

I know that my Redeemer liveth,  
and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth.  
And though after my skin worms destroy this body,  
yet in my flesh shall I see God:  
whom I shall see for myself, and not another. 

* * *

Blair was sobbing, and the singer tightened her grip on the prayer beads in her hand. He was hardly older than she was, not ten years older, and he had lost the man he loved more than anything else. He could not hide his grief. She glanced over at the organist, looked down. She could not look at him, either. She had no answer to give him, certainly not the answer he hoped for. The Burial Sentences were no comfort in the face of Blair Sandburg's grief, and yet they spoke truth: They did not hide from the fear of death. For that reason she clung to them, the prayer beads in one hand, her score in the other. 

Someone got up, it was Jim's younger brother, to read the first lesson from the book of Job, echoing the Burial Sentences. She fastened her eyes on the fragile score, old, thin, scratched by generations of sopranos. WATCH CUT-OFFS was written across the front page in her own hand. The joy of the Croft Burial Sentences was that they did all the work for you: All the grief, all the fear, all the turmoil of emotion was woven into the notes, the language, which fit together more exactly than any other words and music by an English composer. They were austere, they were glorious, and they were the only thing which would get her through this service and her confrontation with another person's naked grief. 

* * *

Out of the deep have I called to thee, O Lord;  
Lord, hear my voice.  
O let thine ears consider well  
the voice of my complaint. 

* * *

Peter's voice climbed up out of its bottom-most notes, from a dark, throaty low F, rising in a chromatic scale in blatant imitation of the text. There was no vibrato in it, no variation due to emotion. It was pure from top to bottom, the purest, straightest countertenor voice in the whole city. In its highest notes, it was clean like white light, it soared. She lost herself in the choir's response, the repeated notes on "complaint", the elegant structure of Morley's composition, in which soloist and organ held colloquy like a mind and its own thoughts, to turn outward with the great bursts of emotion from the chorus. 

* * *

Bob left the choir stalls and went down to the lectern to read. He had been close to Jim and Blair, another gay man, much less closeted than they were. A gay man and a religious man, he had convinced Jim he could make peace with the church of his childhood, he could find solace in the tradition and forgive the institution its offenses. "God shall wipe away every tear," he read. Who could wipe away the tears that streamed down Blair Sandburg's face? Who could comfort this man? Would God somehow miraculously intervene and take away the pain of this loss-- could anyone replace Jim in Blair's life? How could Mark have asked her to marry him on the eve of this funeral, which put an end to the most faithful relationship she knew? It was a relief to rise and sing again. 

* * *

Hide not thou thy face from us, O Lord,  
and cast not off thy servants in thy displeasure.  
For we confess our sins unto thee,  
and hide not our unrighteousness.  
For thy mercy's sake, for thy mercy's sake,  
deliver us from all our sins. 

* * *

Ed, the deacon, did not have a beautiful voice, but he had a strong voice. As he sang the Gospel from the Gospel according to John, you could hear and understand every word. I am the resurrection and the life. She shifted from foot to foot, her hips aching, her hands trembling slightly. Sweat was trickling down her back under the layers of surplice, cassock, linen suit. There were people with Blair, people she did not know--a large, dark-skinned black man in a policeman's dress uniform, a shorter, older black man with greying hair, also in uniform, Jim's brother, a tall slim rangy woman with curly dark hair, a shorter redhead with a face of stone. The large black man was holding Sandburg, rocking him like a child. 

* * *

Thou knowest, Lord, the secrets of our hearts;  
shut not thy merciful ears unto our prayer;  
but spare us, spare us, Lord most holy,  
O God,  
O God most mighty,  
O holy and most merciful Saviour,  
thou most worthy Judge eternal.  
Suffer us not, suffer us not, at our last hour,  
for any pains of death, to fall from thee.  
Amen. 

* * *

The "Amen" there always brought tears to her eyes. There was a whole school of theology in those two short chords, a summary of everything the Anglican tradition had to say about liturgy and prayer, death and dying, grief and loss. The prayer beads were wrapped so tightly around her fingers that the skin was white under them, but she did not feel it. Nor did she know that she was weeping, and that both Mark, the organist, her lover, and the dead man's lover, Blair, were looking at her. 

They went on into the offertory hymn and then the Great Thanksgiving, Josie singing "Lift up your hearts" to the ancient chant and all answering, "We lift them up unto the Lord." When she knelt, it was like her whole body turned to jelly; she sagged against the wooden stall, leaning on her elbows. There was a ringing in her ears and she could hardly hear the words of the prayer of consecration. What was it like, to feel what Blair was feeling now? How could he survive it? Could she bear it? Had she sung the right notes on the Purcell? Had she been restrained enough on the Amen? 

She went to the altar rail, knelt, held out her hands for the bit of white bread that might make sense of all this. The sip of wine burned her brain clear, and she returned to her seat and slipped the beads through her bloodless fingers, praying for Jim and Blair, for all who mourned Jim, for Mark and herself. When everyone had received communion, it was time for the last anthem, "Valiant-for-Truth". 

* * *

After this it was noised abroad that Mr. Valiant-for-Truth was taken with a summons, and had this for a token that the summons was true, 'That his pitcher was broken at the fountain'. When he understood it, he called for his friends, and told them of it. 

Then said he, "I am going to my Father's, and though with great difficulty I am got hither, yet now I do not repent of all the trouble I have been at to arrive where I am. 

My sword, I give to him that shall succeed me in my pilgrimage, and my courage and skill, to him that can get it. 

My marks and scars I carry with me, to be a witness for me, that I have fought his battles, who now will be my rewarder. 

* * *

It was one of the most exquisite, most powerful pieces she had ever sung. It was joy to sing it and to feel the pain that came with it. As they sang, the body was taken out of the church, the casket draped with the colors of the police force, carried by other police officers, the large black man, the tall rangy woman, and Sandburg followed it, head high, his face marked indelibly with weeping. 

* * *

When the day that he must go hence, was come, many accompanied him to the river side, into which, as he went, he said, "Death, where is thy sting?" 

And as he went down deeper, he said, "Grave, where is thy victory?" 

* * *

The notes went up and up, the chords opening out and blossoming, and when Mark ordered the cut-off with his hands, with a sharp chopping gesture, the echo of it rolled sharply down the nave of the church. Only when it had died away did he signal to go on. 

* * *

So he passed over, and all the trumpets sounded for him on the other side. 

* * *

Those last two pages took all her strength, all her focus--focus and power together, to be right. Voices calling back and forth, "and all the trumpets," imitating the rising fifths of a trumpet call, crashing together on the words "sounded for him". She went up to the high G with triumphant brazenness, shaking with passion--it built inside her like an orgasm, so good, so frightening--and she followed Mark's direction unerringly as he slowed down the last six chords, all of them at full voice proclaiming, "on the other side." 

When it was over, she was empty. 

It was quiet at the graveside, after the richness of the music. Mark was across the open grave from her, Blair at a right angle to the both of them. Josie's traditional black cloak flapped in a sudden gust of wind as she read the words of committal and led the Lord's Prayer, most everyone present joining in. Blair was the first to cast the earth upon the coffin, his face still stained, yet composed. What had he gone through, what had he processed, in the last two hours? Had the music helped him? Whether or not he knew it, he had helped her, with his tears and with the way he cast the earth over the body of his lover, his partner. As Blair turned away from the grave, walking toward his friends, she went around him to speak to Mark. 

"I have an answer," she said carefully. 

"You do?" He looked drained, even more than usual after a big service. He must have had some inkling of what she was going through. Perhaps he'd been going through it, too. 

How did one love in the face of death? 

How did one not? 

"I do." She paused, swallowed. "Yes. Yes, I'd like to marry you." 

Mark threw his arms around her--he was covered in sweat, as she was, but it didn't matter--and over his shoulder she saw Blair Sandburg, watching them, and--smiling. Slowly, he nodded. 

And all the trumpets sounded for them on the other side. 

* * *

end 

Music referenced: 

\--Burial Sentences by William Croft 

\--includes "Thou Knowest, Lord, the Secrets of Our Hearts" by Henry Purcell  
\--"Out of the Deep" by Thomas Morley  
\--"Hide Not Thou Thy Face from Us, O Lord" by Richard Farrant  
\--"Valiant-for-Truth" by Ralph Vaughan Williams 

Texts from the Scriptures and from _The Pilgrim's Progress_ by John Bunyan 


End file.
